


Heroes and Reality

by ninamazing



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-30
Updated: 2007-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>If she pretended not to notice the way Robin's lips tightened when she said "Sir Guy," Robin could pretend not to notice that she </em>had<em> noticed.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes and Reality

**Author's Note:**

> For jazzfic, whose writing got me watching the show in the first place, and for noblealice, for being my Jonas buddy.

She was standing just inside the window when Robin arrived. He always told himself that she waited there for him — that she could _feel_ him coming, read his thoughts — but that voice in his mind was growing fainter and fainter, these days. Perhaps Marian simply liked to look at the stars.

"Lady Marian," he whispered, and relished her gasp of surprise (and the gentle air of disapproval, ever close at its heels).

"Too busy for sleep?" she asked. "Come to save the poor even during the night-time?"

"No," he answered slowly, looking up at her from where he leaned on the windowframe. "I came to talk to you."

"I have nothing to tell you," she said. "Sir Guy has — wisely — been holding his tongue around me, I think."

If she pretended not to notice the way Robin's lips tightened when she said "Sir Guy," Robin could pretend not to notice that she _had_ noticed.

"I didn't come for that, either," he replied. "Much says I don't listen to him enough, so I thought — well, I thought I would try listening." When Marian only gazed, he went on: "Is your father well?"

"Yes," she answered, "quite. Thank you." Her eyes brightened as she looked at him now, and she smiled, as Robin had barely ever seen her do since she came back. "And — and Guy has given me a horse," she added. "I've been taking it out — well, just putting it through its paces, really —"

"I think Much was wrong," said Robin suddenly. "Listening is overrated."

Marian glared at him. "I think _you_ are overrated."

"And I think you delight yourself with pretty new toys when death and suffering surround you!"

"Oh, Robin Hood," she snapped, looking into the distance as if she couldn't bear to see him in front of her. "You listen to peasants crow about your deeds and you live your life as if you were a legend."

Robin opened his mouth, but she did not let him speak.

"But this is not a story," she continued. "I cannot rule my life by what I — by what _you_ want, by what you think would be right. Perhaps you are a hero to some, but you are not a hero so much that you can change what reality is."

She was looking into his eyes again. The faint voice in Robin's head told him that it was because she could not help herself, and then he forced himself to notice the bitterness in Marian's face, to hear what she had just said. _You cannot change what reality is._

"At least I try," he murmured.

"It would be better if you didn't," she answered.

The thing that stuck in his mind the most, as he ran back to Much and John and Allan and Will and Djaq, as sharp stones ground into the bottom of his thin-soled feet and as branches tore tiny lines in his sides, the thing that stuck in his mind the most was that she always had a retort ready. She was never at a loss for words. It was as if —

It was as if she truly believed herself.


End file.
